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Full-Text Articles in Law

Throwing Good Money After Bad? Board Connections And Conflicts In Bank Lending, Philip E. Strahan, Randall S. Kroszner Dec 2001

Throwing Good Money After Bad? Board Connections And Conflicts In Bank Lending, Philip E. Strahan, Randall S. Kroszner

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

This paper investigates the frequency of connections between banks and non-financial firms through board linkages and whether those connections affect lending and borrowing behavior. Although a board linkages may reduce the costs of information flows between the lender and borrower, a board linkage may generate pressure for special treatment of a borrower not normally justifiable on economic grounds. To address this issue, we first document that banks are heavily involved in the corporate governance network through frequent board linkages. Banks tend to have larger boards with a higher proportion of outside directors than non- financial firms, and bank officer-directors tend …


The Future Of Campaign Finance Reform Laws In The Courts And In Congress, Elizabeth Garrett Dec 2001

The Future Of Campaign Finance Reform Laws In The Courts And In Congress, Elizabeth Garrett

Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

No abstract provided.


Hesitating To Look In The Mirror: German Jurisprudence After 1933 And After 1945, Michael Stolleis Nov 2001

Hesitating To Look In The Mirror: German Jurisprudence After 1933 And After 1945, Michael Stolleis

Fulton Lectures

No abstract provided.


Beyond Exit And Voice: User Participation In The Production Of Local Public Goods, Lee Anne Fennell Nov 2001

Beyond Exit And Voice: User Participation In The Production Of Local Public Goods, Lee Anne Fennell

Articles

No abstract provided.


Of Artifical Intelligence And Legal Reasoning, Cass R. Sunstein Nov 2001

Of Artifical Intelligence And Legal Reasoning, Cass R. Sunstein

Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

Can computers, or artificial intelligence, reason by analogy? This essay urges that they cannot, because they are unable to engage in the crucial task of identifying the normative principle that links or separates cases. Current claims, about the ability of artificial intelligence to reason analogically, rest on an inadequate picture of what legal reasoning actually is. For the most part, artificial intelligence now operates as a kind of advanced version of LEXIS, offering research assistance rather than analogical reasoning. But this is a claim about current technology, not about inevitable limitations of artificial intelligence; things might change in the future.


Probability Neglect: Emotions, Worst Cases, And Law, Cass R. Sunstein Nov 2001

Probability Neglect: Emotions, Worst Cases, And Law, Cass R. Sunstein

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

When strong emotions are triggered by a risk, people show a remarkable tendency to neglect a small probability that the risk will actually come to fruition. Experimental evidence, involving electric shocks and arsenic, supports this claim, as does real-world evidence, involving responses to abandoned hazardous waste dumps, the pesticide Alar, and anthrax. The resulting “probability neglect” has many implications for law and policy. It suggests the need for institutional constraints on policies based on ungrounded fears; it also shows how government might effectively draw attention to risks that warrant special concern. Probability neglect helps to explain the enactment of certain …


Does Commerce Clause Review Have Perverse Effects?, Adrian Vermeule Oct 2001

Does Commerce Clause Review Have Perverse Effects?, Adrian Vermeule

Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

There is a crucial, although implicit, empirical assumption in the debate about federal judicial review under the affirmative Commerce Clause. The assumption, indulged by many different camps in the debate, is that Commerce Clause review decreases the centralization of policymaking by shifting policy authority to the states. I want to suggest that, on equally plausible empirical assumptions, Commerce Clause review will in fact do just the opposite: it will promote the centralization of public policy at the national level by providing congressional coalitions with ex ante incentives to legislate more broadly, and to create national programs that are more comprehensive, …


The Internet And The Legitimacy Of Remote Cross-Border Searches, Jack L. Goldsmith Oct 2001

The Internet And The Legitimacy Of Remote Cross-Border Searches, Jack L. Goldsmith

Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

No abstract provided.


Covenants Not To Compete From An Incomplete Contracts Perspective, George Triantis, Eric A. Posner Oct 2001

Covenants Not To Compete From An Incomplete Contracts Perspective, George Triantis, Eric A. Posner

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

No abstract provided.


The Political Economy Of Property Exemption Laws, Eric A. Posner, Richard M. Hynes, Anup Malani Sep 2001

The Political Economy Of Property Exemption Laws, Eric A. Posner, Richard M. Hynes, Anup Malani

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

No abstract provided.


Law And The Emotions, Eric A. Posner Sep 2001

Law And The Emotions, Eric A. Posner

Occasional Papers

No abstract provided.


The Allocation Of The Commons: Parking And Stopping On The Commons, Richard A. Epstein Sep 2001

The Allocation Of The Commons: Parking And Stopping On The Commons, Richard A. Epstein

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

The economic forces governing transitions between different property rights regimes has been the source of extensive study since Demsetz's path breaking 1967 essay, "Toward a Theory of Property Rights." This paper offers first a general critique of that position, chiefly on the ground that it underestimates the practical difficulties of orchestrating efficient transitions in contexts where strong political forces are at play. Thereafter, the paper explores the movement among various systems that are used to allocate a particular public good, namely parking places on public streets. It examines both bottom-up systems that rely on analogues to the rule of first …


The Arithmetic Of Arsenic, Cass R. Sunstein Sep 2001

The Arithmetic Of Arsenic, Cass R. Sunstein

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

What does cost-benefit mean, or do, in actual practice? When agencies are engaging in cost-benefit balancing, what are the interactions among law, science, and economics? This Article attempts to answer that question by exploring, in some detail, the controversy over EPA’s proposed regulation of arsenic in drinking water. The largest finding is that science often can produce only “benefit ranges,” and wide ones at that. With reasonable assumptions based on the existing science data, the proposed arsenic regulation can be projected to save as few as 0 lives and as many as 112. With reasonable assumptions, the monetized benefits of …


The Allocation Of The Commons: Parking And Stopping On The Commons, Richard A. Epstein Aug 2001

The Allocation Of The Commons: Parking And Stopping On The Commons, Richard A. Epstein

Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

The economic forces governing transitions between different property rights regimes has been the source of extensive study since Demsetz’s path breaking 1967 essay, “Toward a Theory of Property Rights.” This paper offers first a general critique of that position, chiefly on the ground that it underestimates the practical difficulties of orchestrating efficient transitions in contexts where strong political forces are at play. Thereafter, the paper explores the movement among various systems that are used to allocate a particular public good, namely parking places on public streets. It examines both bottom-up systems that rely on analogues to the rule of first …


Courts Should Not Enforce Government Contracts, Eric A. Posner Aug 2001

Courts Should Not Enforce Government Contracts, Eric A. Posner

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

Most scholars believe that courts should enforce government contracts, though they disagree about the extent to which liability or damages rules should trade off relevant considerations – the problem of governments holding up contractors, on the one hand, and the problem of governments using contracts in order to defer costs to future governments, on the other hand. These scholars, however, overestimate the ability of courts to affect policy outcomes. Courts cannot increase the welfare of current or future generations by enforcing government contracts. The reason is that enforcing contracts can benefit future generations only by increasing the credibility of their …


In And Out Of Public Solution: The Hidden Perils Of Property Transfer, Richard A. Epstein Jul 2001

In And Out Of Public Solution: The Hidden Perils Of Property Transfer, Richard A. Epstein

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

No abstract provided.


Predictably Incoherent Judgments, Cass R. Sunstein, Daniel Kahneman, David Schkade, Ilana Ritov Jul 2001

Predictably Incoherent Judgments, Cass R. Sunstein, Daniel Kahneman, David Schkade, Ilana Ritov

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

When people make moral or legal judgments in isolation, they produce a pattern of outcomes that they would themselves reject, if only they could see that pattern as a whole. A major reason is that human thinking is category-bound. When people see a case in isolation, they spontaneously compare it to other cases that are mainly drawn from the same category of harms. When people are required to compare cases that involve different kinds of harms, judgments that appear sensible when the problems are considered separately often appear incoherent and arbitrary in the broader context. Another major source of incoherence …


Pursuing A Remedy In Microsoft: The Declining Need For Centralized Coordination In A Networked World, Randal C. Picker Jul 2001

Pursuing A Remedy In Microsoft: The Declining Need For Centralized Coordination In A Networked World, Randal C. Picker

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

No abstract provided.


In The United States Court Of Appeals For The Fourteenth Circuit, Richard A. Posner Jun 2001

In The United States Court Of Appeals For The Fourteenth Circuit, Richard A. Posner

Articles

No abstract provided.


Regulating Risks After Ata, Cass R. Sunstein Jun 2001

Regulating Risks After Ata, Cass R. Sunstein

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

Whitman v. American Trucking Association was one of the most eagerly awaited regulatory decisions in many years. But the Court’s understated, steady, lawyerly opinion was a bit of an anticlimax, representing a return to normalcy and leaving many open questions. The Court was correct to say that the relevant provision of the Clean Air Act forbids consideration of cost; it was also correct to refuse to invoke the nondelegation doctrine. Importantly, the Court left in place a set of important lower court decisions, allowing agencies to consider costs unless Congress expressly concludes otherwise. The Court also raised some new questions …


Social And Economic Rights? Lessons From South Africa, Cass R. Sunstein Jun 2001

Social And Economic Rights? Lessons From South Africa, Cass R. Sunstein

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

No abstract provided.


The Laws Of Fear, Cass R. Sunstein Jun 2001

The Laws Of Fear, Cass R. Sunstein

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

Cognitive and social psychologists have uncovered a number of features of ordinary thinking about risk. Giving particular attention to the work of Paul Slovic, this review-essay explores how an understanding of human cognition bears on law and public policy. The basic conclusion is that people make many mistakes in thinking about risk and that sensible policies, and sensible law, will follow statistical evidence, not ordinary people. The discussion explores the use of heuristics, the effects of cascades, the role of emotions, demographic differences, the role of trust, and the possibility that ordinary people have a special “rationality” distinct from that …


The Market For Federal Judicial Law Clerks, Alvin E. Roth, Richard A. Posner, Christopher Avery, Christine Jolls Jun 2001

The Market For Federal Judicial Law Clerks, Alvin E. Roth, Richard A. Posner, Christopher Avery, Christine Jolls

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

In September 1998, the Judicial Conference of the United States abandoned its latest attempt to regulate the timing of interviews and offers in the law clerk selection process. This paper surveys the further unraveling of the market since then, makes comparisons with other entry level professional labor markets, and evaluates some possibilities for reform.


Bankruptcy Decision Making, Edward Morrison, Douglas G. Baird Jun 2001

Bankruptcy Decision Making, Edward Morrison, Douglas G. Baird

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

When a firm encounters financial distress, there is a significant possibility that, at some point, the firm itself should be shut down and its assets put to a better use. But Chapter 11 and indeed all market-mimicking reorganization regimes other than a speedy auction entrust the shutdown decision to a bankruptcy judge who lacks information and expertise, as well as the ability to control the timing of her decisions. Understanding the costs of entrusting the shutdown decision to a bankruptcy judge is central to assessing any law of corporate reorganizations. This paper models the shutdown decision as the exercise of …


Fundamental Human Rights In Medieval Law, Richard H. Helmholz May 2001

Fundamental Human Rights In Medieval Law, Richard H. Helmholz

Fulton Lectures

No abstract provided.


What Has The Visual Arts Rights Act Of 1990 Accomplished?, William M. Landes May 2001

What Has The Visual Arts Rights Act Of 1990 Accomplished?, William M. Landes

Coase-Sandor Working Paper Series in Law and Economics

This paper presents an economic analysis of the Visual Arts Rights Act of 1990 (VARA) which provides attribution and integrity rights, commonly called moral rights, for defined types of artistic works. The paper shows that these laws may actually harm artists by adding contracting and transaction costs in the art market. For most works, these costs will be trivial because collectors have a strong self-interest in preserving the works in good condition. These costs are likely to be significant, however, for works subject to destruction or alteration in the future, such as sitespecific works and works installed in buildings, because …


Institutional Lessons From The 2000 Presidential Election, Elizabeth Garrett May 2001

Institutional Lessons From The 2000 Presidential Election, Elizabeth Garrett

Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

No abstract provided.


Lessons For The Future Of Affirmative Action From The Past Of The Religion Clauses?, Mary Anne Case May 2001

Lessons For The Future Of Affirmative Action From The Past Of The Religion Clauses?, Mary Anne Case

Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

No abstract provided.


Parenthood Divided: A Legal History Of The Bifurcated Law Of Parental Relations., Jill Elaine Hasday May 2001

Parenthood Divided: A Legal History Of The Bifurcated Law Of Parental Relations., Jill Elaine Hasday

Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

The American law of parent and child is conventionally understood to be extremely deferential to parental prerogatives and highly reluctant to intervene. But this picture, endorsed by legal authorities and popular commentators from the nineteenth century to the present day, reflects only one tradition in the law’s regulation of parenthood. Since the last quarter of the nineteenth century, there has also been massive legal intervention into the parental relation. This second legal tradition, moreover, has been guided by norms wholly different from those conventionally associated with family law, often evincing a radical suspicion of parental autonomy and an eager willingness …


Social And Economic Rights? Lessons From South Africa, Cass R. Sunstein May 2001

Social And Economic Rights? Lessons From South Africa, Cass R. Sunstein

Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

No abstract provided.