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Articles 1 - 7 of 7
Full-Text Articles in Law
Fractured Markets And Legal Institutions, Herbert J. Hovenkamp
Fractured Markets And Legal Institutions, Herbert J. Hovenkamp
All Faculty Scholarship
This article considers how we can improve legal outcomes of conflicts that occur in very small arenas. The conflicts can be of many kinds, including a nuisance dispute between neighbors, an impending collision between two moving vehicles, a joint decision between spouses about whether or on what terms to continue their marriage, or a disagreement between managers and shareholders within a firm.
The prevailing literature typically refers to these small environments as “markets.” Thinking of them as markets, however, averts our attention from larger environments that should be considered but that often do not function well as private markets. For …
Liquid Assets: A Coasian Economic Analysis Of Oregon's Allocation Of Conserved Water Program, Richard A. Grisel
Liquid Assets: A Coasian Economic Analysis Of Oregon's Allocation Of Conserved Water Program, Richard A. Grisel
Richard A Grisel
Diversions for residential, agricultural, recreational, commercial, industrial, and other beneficial uses have had the effect of removing water from rivers and tributaries throughout the western U.S. Another, more recent, competing use is ecological, demonstrated by the legal recognition of instream beneficial uses in some jurisdictions. As awareness of the progressively acute need for reallocation has increased in the arid West, so has interest in water markets and other mechanisms to facilitate transfers across beneficial uses. However, governments and water users face a legacy prior appropriation system that prohibits instream beneficial uses, encourages maximal diversion, stifles water right fungibility, and generally …
Understanding "The Problem Of Social Cost", Enrico Baffi
Understanding "The Problem Of Social Cost", Enrico Baffi
enrico baffi
This paper examines the positions of Coase and Pigou in regard to the problem of external effects (externalities). Assessing their two most important works, it appears that Coase has a more relevant preference for an evaluation of total efficiency, while Pigou, with some exceptions, is convinced that it is almost always socially desirable to reach marginal efficiency through taxes or liability. It is interesting that the economist of Chicago, who has elaborated on the renowned theorem, thinks that is not desirable to reach efficiency at the margin every time, and that it is often preferable to evaluate the total, which …
Strategic Spillovers, Daniel B. Kelly
Strategic Spillovers, Daniel B. Kelly
Journal Articles
The conventional problem with externalities is well known: Parties often generate harm as an unintended byproduct of using their property. This Article examines situations in which parties may generate harm purposely, in order to extract payments in exchange for desisting. Such “strategic spillovers” have received relatively little attention, but the problem is a perennial one. From the “livery stable scam” in Chicago to “pollution entrepreneurs” in China, parties may engage in externality-generating activities they otherwise would not have undertaken, or increase the level of harm given that they are engaging in such activities, to profit through bargaining or subsidies. This …
Appropriability And Property, Yonatan Even
Appropriability And Property, Yonatan Even
American University Law Review
This paper challenges the malleability of the idea of property as a relative, indeterminate "bundle of rights", which appears to dominate property doctrine at least since Ronald Coase's "The Problem of Social Cost". Focusing on the core goals of property regimes, the paper proposes an alternative view of property rights - one that is centered on the ability of owners to appropriate the benefits of their assets in the face of a threat from numerous potential adversaries, rather than their ability to contract such assets away within a bilateral context. This appropriability problem, it is argued, is a defining concept …
Spectrum Policy Reform And The Next Frontier Of Property Rights, Philip J. Weiser, Dale N. Hatfield
Spectrum Policy Reform And The Next Frontier Of Property Rights, Philip J. Weiser, Dale N. Hatfield
Publications
The scarcity of wireless spectrum reflects a costly failure of regulation. In practice, large swaths of spectrum are vastly underused or used for low value activities, but the regulatory system prevents innovative users from gaining access to such spectrum through marketplace transactions. In calling for the propertyzing of swaths of spectrum as a replacement for the current command-and-control system, many scholars have wrongfully assumed the simplicity of how such a regime would work in practice. In short, many scholars suggest that spectrum property rights can easily borrow key principles from trespass law, reasoning that since property rights work well for …
The Problem Of Social Cost In A Genetically Modified Age, Paul J. Heald, James C. Smith
The Problem Of Social Cost In A Genetically Modified Age, Paul J. Heald, James C. Smith
Scholarly Works
In Part I of this Article, we apply the Coase Theorem and its most useful corollary to the problem of pollen drift. We conclude that the liability of pollen polluters should be governed by balancing rules against nuisance law, to be applied on a case-by-case basis, rather than by a blanket liability or immunity rule. We also conclude that truly bystanding non-GMO farmers should have a viable defense to patent infringement because liability would result in the application of a reverse Pigovian tax that cannot be justified under accepted economic theory. Only a contextual approach can account for the wide …