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Full-Text Articles in Law

The High Price Of Poverty: A Study Of How The Majority Of Current Court System Procedures For Collecting Court Costs And Fees, As Well As Fines, Have Failed To Adhere To Established Precedent And The Constitutional Guarantees They Advocate., Trevor J. Calligan Jul 2015

The High Price Of Poverty: A Study Of How The Majority Of Current Court System Procedures For Collecting Court Costs And Fees, As Well As Fines, Have Failed To Adhere To Established Precedent And The Constitutional Guarantees They Advocate., Trevor J. Calligan

Trevor J Calligan

No abstract provided.


Public Actors In Private Markets: Toward A Developmental Finance State, Robert Hockett, Saule Omarova Jun 2015

Public Actors In Private Markets: Toward A Developmental Finance State, Robert Hockett, Saule Omarova

Saule T. Omarova

The recent financial crisis brought into sharp relief fundamental questions about the social function and purpose of the financial system, including its relation to the “real” economy. This Article argues that, to answer these questions, we must recapture a distinctively American view of the proper relations among state, financial market, and development. This programmatic vision – captured in what we call a “developmental finance state” – is based on three key propositions: (1) that economic and social development is not an “end-state” but a continuing national policy priority; (2) that the modalities of finance are the most potent means of …


Cleaning The Muck Of Ages From The Windows Into The Soul Of Income Tax, John Passant Apr 2015

Cleaning The Muck Of Ages From The Windows Into The Soul Of Income Tax, John Passant

John Passant

The aim of this paper is to provide readers with an insight into Marx’s methods as a first step to understanding income tax more generally but with specific reference to Australia’s income tax system. I do this by introducing readers to the ideas about the totality that is capitalism, appearance and form, and the dialectic in Marx’s hands. This will involve looking at income tax as part of the bigger picture of capitalism, and understanding that all things are related and changes in one produce changes in all. Appearances can be deceptive and we need to delve below the surface …


Law In Regression? Impacts Of Quantitative Research On Law And Regulation, David C. Donald Dec 2014

Law In Regression? Impacts Of Quantitative Research On Law And Regulation, David C. Donald

David C. Donald

Quantitative research (QR) has undeniably improved the quality of law- and rulemaking, but it can also present risks for these activities. On the one hand, replacing anecdotal assertions regarding behavior or the effects of rules in an area to be regulated with objective, statistical evidence has advanced the quality of regulatory discourse. On the other hand, because the construction of such evidence often depends on bringing the complex realities of both human behavior and rules designed to govern it into simple, quantified variables, QR findings can at times camouflage complexity, masking real problems. Deceptively objective findings can in this way …


Copyright Porn Trolls, Wasting Taxi Medallions, And The Propriety Of ‘Property’, Tom W. Bell Dec 2014

Copyright Porn Trolls, Wasting Taxi Medallions, And The Propriety Of ‘Property’, Tom W. Bell

Tom W. Bell

What happens when the government creates privileges that have powers rivaling those that the common law accords to property? Recent events in two seemingly unrelated areas suggest a troubling answer to that question. First, in copyright, porn trolls have sued thousands of John Does for allegedly participating in illegal file sharing. These suits evidently seek not judicial vindication but merely the defendants' identities, which the plaintiffs then use to reap settlement payments from guilty and innocent alike. Second, taxi drivers in cities across the world have launched legal, political, and physical attacks against Uber and other networked transportation services, accusing …


Taking Distribution Seriously, Robert C. Hockett Dec 2014

Taking Distribution Seriously, Robert C. Hockett

Robert C. Hockett

It is common for legal theorists and policy analysts to think and communicate mainly in maximizing terms. What is less common is for them to notice that each time we speak explicitly of socially maximizing one thing, we speak implicitly of distributing another thing and equalizing yet another thing. We also, moreover, effectively define ourselves and our fellow citizens by reference to that which we equalize; for it is in virtue of the latter that our social welfare formulations treat us as “counting” for purposes of socially aggregating and maximizing. To attend systematically to the inter-translatability of maximization language on …


Minding The Gaps: Fairness, Welfare, And The Constitutive Structure Of Distributive Assessment, Robert C. Hockett Dec 2014

Minding The Gaps: Fairness, Welfare, And The Constitutive Structure Of Distributive Assessment, Robert C. Hockett

Robert C. Hockett

Despite over a century’s disputation and attendant opportunity for clarification, the field of inquiry now loosely labeled “welfare economics” (WE) remains surprisingly prone to foundational confusions. The same holds of work done by many practitioners of WE’s influential offshoot, normative “law and economics” (LE). A conspicuous contemporary case of confusion turns up in recent discussion concerning “fairness versus welfare.” The very naming of this putative dispute signals a crude category error. “Welfare” denotes a proposed object of distribution. “Fairness” describes and appropriate pattern of distribution. Welfare itself is distributed fairly or unfairly. “Fairness versus welfare” is analytically on all fours …


The Impossibility Of A Prescriptive Paretian, Robert C. Hockett Dec 2014

The Impossibility Of A Prescriptive Paretian, Robert C. Hockett

Robert C. Hockett

Most normatively oriented economists appear to be “welfarist” and Paretian to one degree or another: They deem responsiveness to individual preferences, and satisfaction of one or more of the Pareto criteria, to be a desirable attribute of any social welfare function. I show that no strictly “welfarist” or Paretian social welfare function can be normatively prescriptive. Economists who prescribe must embrace at least one value apart from or additional to “welfarism” and Paretianism, and in fact will do best to dispense with Pareto entirely.


Explaining The Importance Of Public Choice For Law, D. Daniel Sokol Nov 2014

Explaining The Importance Of Public Choice For Law, D. Daniel Sokol

D. Daniel Sokol

The next generation of government officials, business leaders and members of civil society likely will draw from the current pool of law school students. These students often lack a foundation of the theoretical and analytical tools necessary to understand law's interplay with government. This highlights the importance of public choice analysis. By framing issues through a public choice lens, these students will learn the dynamics of effective decision-making within various institutional settings. Filling the void of how to explain the decision-making process of institutional actors in legal settings is Public Choice Concepts and Applications in Law by Maxwell Stearns and …


On The Public-Law Character Of Competition Law: A Lesson Of Asian Capitalism, Michael Dowdle Aug 2014

On The Public-Law Character Of Competition Law: A Lesson Of Asian Capitalism, Michael Dowdle

Michael Dowdle

This article argues that competition law is best seen as a form of public law – ‘the law that governs the governing of the state – and not as simply a form of private market regulation. It uses the experiences of ‘Asian capitalism’ to show how capitalist economies are in fact much more variegated than the orthodox model of competition law presumes, and that this variegated character demands a form of regulation that is innately political rather than simply technical. Orthodox competition regimes address this complexity by segregating non-standard capitalisms into alternative doctrinal jurisprudences, but this renders conceptually invisible the …


Demon At The Back Door: Rise Of The Mexican Drug Cartels, Oliver T. Beatty Mar 2014

Demon At The Back Door: Rise Of The Mexican Drug Cartels, Oliver T. Beatty

Oliver T Beatty

This article addresses the rise of the violent Mexican drug cartels and searches within the legislative and law enforcement toolbox on how to dethrone the epidemic of violence on the border. The Mexican drug cartels rose from the ashes and structural framework of the Colombian cocaine cartels which gave these new criminal empires their routes, connections, and ease at taking over Pablo Escobar’s monopoly on the drug trafficking game. In addressing the origins of the cartels this article explores the trajectory of cocaine from imported medical remedy to criminalized substance. Additionally this article explores how the Italian mafia was dismantled …


Corporate Social Responsibility In A Remedy-Seeking Society: A Public Choice Perspective, Donald J. Kochan Dec 2013

Corporate Social Responsibility In A Remedy-Seeking Society: A Public Choice Perspective, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

Written for the Chapman Law Review Symposium on “What Can Law & Economics Teach Us About the Corporate Social Responsibility Debate?,” this Article applies the lessons of public choice theory to examine corporate social responsibility. The Article adopts a broad definition of corporate social responsibility activism to include both (1) those efforts that seek to convince corporations to voluntarily take into account corporate social responsibility in their own decision-making, and (2) the efforts to alter the legal landscape and expand legal obligations of corporations beyond traditional notions of harm and duty so as to force corporations to invest in interests …


Beyond Finality: How Making Criminal Judgments Less Final Can Further The Interests Of Finality, Andrew Chongseh Kim Oct 2013

Beyond Finality: How Making Criminal Judgments Less Final Can Further The Interests Of Finality, Andrew Chongseh Kim

Andrew Chongseh Kim

Courts and scholars commonly assume that granting convicted defendants more liberal rights to challenge their judgments would harm society’s interests in “finality.” According to conventional wisdom, finality in criminal judgments is necessary to conserve resources, encourage efficient behavior by defense counsel, and deter crime. Thus, under the common analysis, the extent to which convicted defendants should be allowed to challenge their judgments depends on how much society is willing to sacrifice to validate defendants’ rights. This Article argues that expanding defendants’ rights on post-conviction review does not always harm these interests. Rather, more liberal review can often conserve state resources, …


The Legitimacy Of Crimmigration Law, Juliet P. Stumpf Aug 2013

The Legitimacy Of Crimmigration Law, Juliet P. Stumpf

Juliet P Stumpf

Crimmigration law—the intersection of immigration and criminal law—with its emphasis on immigration enforcement, has been hailed as the lynchpin for successful political compromise on immigration reform. Yet crimmigration law’s unprecedented approach to interior immigration and criminal law enforcement threatens to undermine public belief in the fairness of immigration law. This Article uses pioneering social science research to explore people’s perceptions of the legitimacy of crimmigration law. According to Tom Tyler and other compliance scholars, perceptions about procedural justice—whether people perceive authorities as acting fairly—are often more important than a favorable outcome such as winning the case or avoiding arrest. Legal …


Licensure Of Health Care Professionals: The Consumer's Case For Abolition, Charles H. Baron Aug 2013

Licensure Of Health Care Professionals: The Consumer's Case For Abolition, Charles H. Baron

Charles H. Baron

While state medical licensure laws ostensibly are intended to promote worthwhile goals, such as the maintenance of high standards in health care delivery, this Article argues that these laws in practice are detrimental to consumers. The Article takes the position that licensure contributes to high medical care costs and stifles competition, innovation and consumer autonomy. It concludes that delicensure would expand the range of health services available to consumers and reduce patient dependency, and that these developments would tend to make medical practice more satisfying to consumers and providers of health care services.


Expanding The Inner Circle: How Welfarist Norms Escape In-Groups, Alexander D. Jakle Jul 2013

Expanding The Inner Circle: How Welfarist Norms Escape In-Groups, Alexander D. Jakle

Alexander D. Jakle

I explore the influence of social mechanisms by which welfarist norms come to be appropriate by those outside the social group for which they were developed, and how they lead to patterned deviance from the law. Drawing on literature from law and society, law and economics, political science, social theory, and other fields, I use original research from a qualitative study of amateur baseball players to analyze the interplay between norms, groups, and deviance. Relationships with agents is widespread, despite being against both NCAA Bylaws and most players economic incentives. To explain this seemingly irrational pattern of rule-breaking, I argue …


The Lies We Tell Ourselves: Confidence, Self-Deception, And Their Effects On "Rationality" And Deviance, Alexander D. Jakle Jul 2013

The Lies We Tell Ourselves: Confidence, Self-Deception, And Their Effects On "Rationality" And Deviance, Alexander D. Jakle

Alexander D. Jakle

Law and economics suggests that we behave in ways that maximize our preferences, but what if we are deceived about what we want or how best to get it? This article explores how the psychology of self-deception can be marshaled to explain unexpected patterns of law-breaking and deviance. Using original research from a qualitative case study of amateur NCAA baseball players, I examine the ways in which self-deception leads us to systematically reinterpret and process information, fundamentally changing how we weigh the costs and benefits associated with breaking rules. Our preferences are inextricably interwoven with our identities, and we go …


Democracy V. Capitalism: An Inquiry Into The Role Of Government In The Economy, Daniel J. Boyle Jun 2013

Democracy V. Capitalism: An Inquiry Into The Role Of Government In The Economy, Daniel J. Boyle

Daniel J Boyle

Our modern social contract is mired in conflict between two opposing ideological views and systems: one that believes the optimal path to prosperity requires minimalist government involvement and the other which believes that government should guarantee social and economic welfare for society. Ideologically based arguments on each side drive a further wedge between the “haves” and the “have-nots.” The challenge of resolving these conflicting views is perhaps the most fundamental issue facing the world. The conflicts that have arisen in our societies in recent years—the backlash over globalization, the financial crisis, the European debt crisis, and many others—have parallels in …


Snopa And The Ppa: Do You Know What It Means For You? If Snopa (Social Networking Online Protection Act) Or Ppa (Password Protection Act) Do Not Pass, The Snooping Could Cause You Trouble, Angela Goodrum May 2013

Snopa And The Ppa: Do You Know What It Means For You? If Snopa (Social Networking Online Protection Act) Or Ppa (Password Protection Act) Do Not Pass, The Snooping Could Cause You Trouble, Angela Goodrum

Angela Goodrum

No abstract provided.


South Dakota: Making Dollars And Sense Of Indian Child Removal, Rachael Whitaker Mar 2013

South Dakota: Making Dollars And Sense Of Indian Child Removal, Rachael Whitaker

Rachael Whitaker

South Dakota- Making Dollars and Sense of Indian Child Removal By: Rachael Whitaker In 2004, a South Dakota Governor’s Commission report adamantly denied claims that the state’s Department of Social Services (DSS) is “harvesting Indian children as a cash crop” and “runs nothing more than a state sponsored kidnapping program.” National Public Radio (NPR) broke a story in 2011, claiming South Dakota removed Indian children for profit. Since NPR’s report, the state has remained tight-lipped, advocates have threatened litigation, and Congress has asked for answers. South Dakota has a small population and economy, and it receives almost half of its …


Costs Of Codification, Dru Stevenson Feb 2013

Costs Of Codification, Dru Stevenson

Dru Stevenson

Between the Civil War and World War II, every state and the federal government shifted toward codified versions of their statutes. Academia has so far ignored the systemic effects of this dramatic change. For example, the consensus view in the academic literature about rules and standards has been that precise rules present higher enactment costs for legislatures than would general standards, while vague standards present higher information costs for courts and citizens than do rules. Systematic codification – featuring hierarchical format and numbering, topical arrangement, and cross-references – inverts this relationship, lowering transaction costs for legislatures and increasing information costs …


Neoliberalism And The Law: How Historical Materialism Can Illuminate Recent Governmental And Judicial Decision Making, Justin Schwartz Jan 2013

Neoliberalism And The Law: How Historical Materialism Can Illuminate Recent Governmental And Judicial Decision Making, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

Neoliberalism can be understood as the deregulation of the economy from political control by deliberate action or inaction of the state. As such it is both constituted by the law and deeply affects it. I show how the methods of historical materialism can illuminate this phenomenon in all three branches of the the U.S. government. Considering the example the global financial crisis of 2007-08 that began with the housing bubble developing from trade in unregulated and overvalued mortgage backed securities, I show how the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which established a firewall between commercial and investment banking, allowed this …


American Finance And American Democracy: Towards An Institutionalist "Law And Economics", Tamara Lothian Jan 2012

American Finance And American Democracy: Towards An Institutionalist "Law And Economics", Tamara Lothian

Tamara Lothian

This article reconsiders the financial and economic crisis of 2007-2009 and the present debate about the regulation of finance in the light of a vision of how finance can better serve the American economy and American Democracy. The central claim is that regulation as conventionally understood cannot adequately redress the problems, and seize the opportunities, revealed by the crisis. We should approach financial regulation as the first step in a series of institutional innovations designed to put finance more effectively at the service of the real economy (financial deepening) while broadening economic opportunity in the country (financial democratization). I develop …


Firms As Social Actors, Richard Adelstein Dec 2009

Firms As Social Actors, Richard Adelstein

Richard Adelstein

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


Organizations And Economics, Richard Adelstein Dec 2009

Organizations And Economics, Richard Adelstein

Richard Adelstein

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


Introducción Al Análisis Económico Del Derecho Administrativo / Introduction To Administrative Law And Economics, Andres Palacios Lleras Jan 2009

Introducción Al Análisis Económico Del Derecho Administrativo / Introduction To Administrative Law And Economics, Andres Palacios Lleras

Andrés Palacios Lleras

El estudio y la enseñanza del derecho administrativo colombiano dejan mucho que desear, especialmente en lo que respecta al estudio del derecho como fenómeno social. Éste tiende a ser presentado como un cuerpo de normas políticamente neutrales, construido a partir de categorías conceptuales muy abstractas, y coherente. Como resultado de ello, asume una posición “normativista” que ignora el contexto social en el que lleva a la producción e interpretación de las normas jurídicas. Este artículo sugiere que un cambio conceptual puede ser muy útil para “curar” al análisis del derecho administrativo de los males que lo aquejan. Sugiere que el …


Behavioral Public Finance, Edward J. Mccaffery Jul 2008

Behavioral Public Finance, Edward J. Mccaffery

Edward J McCaffery

These are slides from a presentation to the Gruter Institute for Law and Behavioral Research, Squaw Valley Conference, May, 2008 (at which event Michael Jensen got me to agree to post these slides as a pdf on SSRN . . . ). The task is to give an overview of what I hope to be an emerging field of behavioral public finance. Behavioral finance, as per Barberis and Thaler 2003 (and others), consists of two parts: (1) individual level heuristics and biases, which can lead to sub-optimal (inconsistent) judgment and decision-making, and (2) institutional arbitrage mechanisms. In private finance and …


Comments On Liebman And Zeckhauser, Simple Humans, Complex Insurance, Subtle Subsidies, Edward J. Mccaffery Jul 2008

Comments On Liebman And Zeckhauser, Simple Humans, Complex Insurance, Subtle Subsidies, Edward J. Mccaffery

Edward J McCaffery

These are brief comments on an excellent paper by Jeffrey Liebman and Richard Zeckhauser, prepared for a conference sponsored by the Urban Institute and Brookings on tax and health care policy. Liebman and Zeckhauser summarize the complexities involved in making optimal health insurance decisions, and offer generally cautionary notes about conflating these with tax law (a theme of the conference). Most importantly, Liebman and Zeckhauser suggest a positive role for employers in health care and insurance decisions, as better setters or framers of choice sets—witness 401(k) plans. In this Commentary, I applaud Leibman and Zeckhauser’s general work and particular observation, …


Situating Emotion: A Critical Realist View Of Emotion And Nonconscious Cognitive Processes For Law And Legal Theory, David J. Arkush Jan 2008

Situating Emotion: A Critical Realist View Of Emotion And Nonconscious Cognitive Processes For Law And Legal Theory, David J. Arkush

David J. Arkush

This Article attempts to clarify legal thinking about emotion in decision making. It surveys evidence from psychology and neuroscience on the extensive role that emotion and related nonconscious cognitive processes play in human behavior, then evaluates the treatment of emotion in three legal views of decision making: rational choice theory, behavioral economics, and cultural cognition theory. The Article concludes that each theory is mistaken to treat emotion mostly as a decision objective rather than a part of the decision-making process and, indeed, to treat it as a force that mostly compromises that process. The Article introduces the view that emotion …


Much Ado About Pluralities: Pride And Precedent Amidst The Cacophy Of Concurrences, And Re-Percolation After Rapanos, Donald J. Kochan, Melissa M. Berry, Matthew J. Parlow Dec 2007

Much Ado About Pluralities: Pride And Precedent Amidst The Cacophy Of Concurrences, And Re-Percolation After Rapanos, Donald J. Kochan, Melissa M. Berry, Matthew J. Parlow

Donald J. Kochan

Conflicts created by concurrences and pluralities in court decisions create confusion in law and lower court interpretation. Rule of law values require that individuals be able to identify controlling legal principles. That task is complicated when pluralities and concurrences contribute to the vagueness or uncertainty that leaves us wondering what the controlling rule is or attempting to predict what it will evolve to become. The rule of law is at least handicapped when continuity or confidence or confusion infuse our understanding of the applicable rules. This Article uses the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Rapanos v. United States to …