Law Commons^™

Beyond Candor, Scott Altman

Michigan Law Review

In Part I, I consider whether judges might hold inaccurate beliefs that make them more candid and constrained. I suggest that even if theories of neutral decisionmaking are incomplete and inaccurate, a legal system in which judges hold these beliefs about their own behavior could have advantages. If many judges believe that they can, should, and do decide almost all cases by following the law, they might behave differently than they would if they held more accurate beliefs. They might behave so as to facilitate repression and denial, because their self-esteem depends on maintaining the belief that they decide as …

The Role Of The Democratic And Republican Parties As Organizers Of Shadow Interest Groups, Jonathan R. Macey

Michigan Law Review

This article advances a new theory to explain the relationship between political parties and interest groups. Among the as yet unanswered questions that I resolve are: (1) why many politicians -both Republicans and Democrats - develop a reputation for "party loyalty" despite the parties' inability to employ any meaningful sanctions against politicians who deviate from the party line; (2) why candidates for public office run in contested primaries when running as an independent generally would be a less costly mechanism for getting on the ballot; (3) why the two major U.S. political parties continue to attract resources from contributors and …

The Interpreters, Kenneth L. Karst

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Justice as Translation: An Essay in Cultural and Legal Criticism by James Boyd White

Democracy And Its Critics, Cary Coglianese

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Democracy and Its Critics by Robert A. Dahl

Happy Slaves: A Critique Of Consent Theory, Adam C. Sloane

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Happy Slaves: A Critique of Consent Theory by Don Herzog

Critical Legal Studies, Michael F. Colosi

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Critical Legal Studies by Allan C. Hutchinson

Can Ignorance Be Bliss? Imperfect Information As A Positive Influence In Political Institutions, Michael A. Fitts

Michigan Law Review

In Parts I and II, I shall summarize the law-and-economics and civic virtue perspectives on the value of political information and their proposals for reforms in the political process that would stimulate greater political information. These two literatures are often viewed as distinct in their objectives: one seeking to improve means/ends rationality; the other seeking to improve goal formation - a function that I loosely describe as normative, ethical, or value-based. Nevertheless, they share some common practical approaches where information is concerned. In Part Ill, I shall discuss the instrumental advantages to limiting political information, focusing particularly on the role …

Social Irresponsibility, Actuarial Assumptions, And Wealth Redistribution: Lessons About Public Policy From A Prepaid Tuition Program, Jeffrey S. Lehman

Michigan Law Review

In this article, I shall try to illuminate the question of how governments, as opposed to private insurers, grapple with the problem of intergenerational social irresponsibility. I shall do so by analyzing and criticizing a single public program. That program, the Michigan Education Trust (MET), was the most widely publicized government action in the field of higher education finance during the 1980s. MET allows parents of young children to purchase contracts promising to cover the children's tuition at Michigan public colleges when they enroll up to eighteen years later.

In setting forth this case study, I also attempt to develop …

Stalking The Squeeze: Understanding Commodities Market Manipulation, Richard D. Friedman

Articles

This article addresses the perplexing and important problem of how to distinguish valid, large-scale trading activity from a squeeze. Part I analyzes and reformulates what I will call the price-impact test, according to which manipulation is conduct motivated by its impact on price. This test, I contend, states a necessary but not sufficient condition for characterizing conduct as a squeeze. Part II offers a substantially different test, which I call the modified-sanctions approach. Under this approach, the price-impact test is used as a preliminary safe-harbor standard. The modified-sanctions approach goes further, however, recognizing that the essence of a squeeze is …

Some Implications Of Cognitive Psychology For Risk Regulation, Roger G. Noll, James E. Krier

Articles

Beginning with a set of books and articles published in the 1950s, cognitive psychologists have developed a new descriptive theory of how people make decisions under conditions of risk and uncertainty. A dominant theme in the theory is that most people do not evaluate risky circumstances in the manner assumed by conventional decision theory-they do not, that is, seek to maximize the expected value of some function when selecting among actions with uncertain outcomes. The purpose of this article is to consider some implications of the cognitive theory for regulatory policies designed to control risks to life, health, and the …

Generalization In Interpretive Theory, Joseph Vining

Articles

There are arguments at large about the nature of legal interpretation, proceeding from an implicit proposition that interpretation is the same phenomenon or experience whatever its setting. An assumption that there is one phenomenon can be found in discussions among lawyers of interpretation and in discussions among nonlawyers of legal interpretation-and as often in the work of those who would deny there is any significance to theorizing about interpretation, as of those who think persuasion to a particular theory will have the utmost consequence for law and society. Proceeding from such a proposition, rather than toward it, raises the risk …

Risk, Courts, And Agencies, Clayton P. Gillette, James E. Krier

Articles

Public risks are precisely the risks that have recently captured the attention of the legal community and the world at large, in no small part because they give rise to such novel problems for lawyers and such grave apprehensions among lay people. Public risks have moved the legal system to relax doctrines--regarding, for example, standards of causation and culpability, burdens of proof, sharing of liability--that were designed to deal with the private risks that once dominated the landscape. And public risks have moved lay people to intensify their demands for risk control measures. These developments suggest that public risks are …

Risk And Design, James E. Krier

Articles

Risk springs from uncertainty,' uncertainty invites error, and, since error can be costly, we would prefer to avoid it (provided, of course, that avoidance is not more costly yet). While there is much in the Noll and Krier article2 about judgmental error under conditions of risk and uncertainty, there is little about ways to avoid it. So avoidance-more accurately, minimization-of error costs is the topic I want to address very briefly and partially here.