Law Commons^™

Recessions And The Social Safety Net: The Alternative Minimum Tax As A Countercyclical Fiscal Stabilizer, Brian Galle, Jonathan Klick

All Faculty Scholarship

As recent events illustrate, state finances are procyclical: during recessions, state revenues crash, worsening the effects of economic downturns. This problem is well known, yet persistent. We argue here that, in light of predictable federalism and political economy dynamics, states will be unable to change this situation on their own. Additionally, we note that many possible federal remedies may result in worse problems, such as by creating moral hazard that would induce states to take on excessively risky policy, both fiscal and otherwise. Thus, we argue that policymakers should consider so-called “automatic” stabilizers, such as are found in the federal …

Agenda: Shale Plays In The Intermountain West: Legal And Policy Issues, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center

Shale Plays in the Intermountain West: Legal and Policy Issues (November 12)

This one-day symposium to be held at the Grand Hyatt hotel in Denver will address the technology, economics, environmental impacts, and regulatory issues associated with shale gas development in the Rocky Mountain region. The purpose of this event is to facilitate productive dialogue among a wide range of stakeholders and interested parties to guide policy decisions.

November 5, 2010: “Let The Free Market Reign”, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, ““Let the Free Market Reign”“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

September 23, 2010: Why Global Warming Cannot Be Happening, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Why Global Warming Cannot be Happening“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

The Role Of Derivatives In The Financial Crisis – Testimony Before The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, June 30, 2010, Michael Greenberger

Congressional Testimony

It is now almost universally accepted that the unregulated multi-trillion dollar OTC CDS market helped foment a mortgage crisis, then a credit crisis, and finally a ―once-in-a-century systemic financial crisis that, but for huge U.S. taxpayer interventions, would have in the fall of 2008 led the world economy into a devastating Depression. Before explaining below the manner in which credit default swaps fomented this crisis, it worth citing in the margin those many economists, regulators, market observers, and financial columnists who have described the central role unregulated CDS played in the crisis.

Even those once skeptical of arguments about the …

The Future Of Music: Reconfiguring Public Performance Rights, Gary Myers, George Howard

Faculty Publications

This article focuses on two concrete measures to improve the music industry prognosis. Public performance rights have long been an important piece of the economic pie that helps support the music business. This article suggests that the scope of public performance rights should be fundamentally reassessed and expanded. This expansion involves two specific and complementary reconfigurations.

Understanding The New Tennessee Small Business Investment Company Credit Act: Stimulating Economic Growth At The Intersection Of Free Market Capitalism And Government Intervention, Brian Krumm

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

February 11, 2010: Economic Life Under Hallowed Secularism, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “Economic Life Under Hallowed Secularism“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

Agenda: The Promise And Peril Of Oil Shale Development, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center

The Promise and Peril of Oil Shale Development (February 5)

The largest known oil shale deposits in the world are in the Green River Formation, which covers portions of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. Fully one-half of the world’s oil shale lies within 150 miles of Grand Junction, Colorado, and about 80% of these reserves are on federal land. Estimates of recoverable reserves in the Green River Formation range from 500 billion to 1.53 trillion barrels. At present consumption rates, this is enough oil to satisfy 100% of U.S. demand for well over 100 years.

Development of oil shale could cause significant impacts on the Colorado Plateau. It would provide for …

Breaking Bucks: Sec Regulation By Obfuscation, William A. Birdthistle

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article argues that the Securities and Exchange Commission’s first and most significant response to the economic crisis profoundly contradicts widely accepted theoretical and regulatory approaches to financial oversight. More alarmingly, the SEC’s newest rules increase rather than decrease the likelihood of future failures in money market funds and the broader capital markets.

Scholars – of both neoclassical and behavioral economic theory – have long insisted that transparency and disclosure play essential roles in ensuring efficient capital markets and sound financial regulation. Professors Gilson and Kraakman notably argued that the efficient capital market hypothesis, and its reliance on a market …

Binary Economics - An Overview, Robert Ashford

College of Law - Faculty Scholarship

Based on binary economic principles, this paper asserts that one widely overlooked way to empower economically poor and working people in market economy is to universalize the right to acquire capital with the earnings of capital. This right is presently largely concentrated, as a practical matter, in less than 5 % of the population. The concentration of the right to acquire capital with the earnings of capital helps to explain how people either remain poor or end up poor no matter how hard they work or are willing to work. Binary Economics offers a conception of economics that is foundationally …

It's The Hard Luck Life: Women's Moral Luck And Eucatastrophe In Child Custody Allocation, Lolita Buckner Inniss

Publications

No abstract provided.

Managing Medical Bills On The Brink Of Bankruptcy, Melissa B. Jacoby, Mirya Holman

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Sovereignty And Cooperation In Regional Pacific Tuna Fisheries Management: Politics, Economics, Conservation And The Vessel Day Scheme, Quentin A. Hanich, Hannah Parris, Ben M. Tsamenyi

Faculty of Law - Papers (Archive)

No abstract provided.

The Law Of Vertical Integration And The Business Firm: 1880-1960, Herbert J. Hovenkamp

All Faculty Scholarship

Vertical integration occurs when a firm does something for itself that it could otherwise procure on the market. For example, a manufacturer that opens its own stores is said to be vertically integrated into distribution. One irony of history is that both classical political economy and neoclassicism saw vertical integration and vertical contractual arrangements as much less threatening to competition than cartels or other horizontal arrangements. Nevertheless, vertical integration has produced by far the greater amount of legislation at both federal and state levels and has motivated many more political action groups. Two things explain this phenomenon. First, while economists …

Preserving A Political Bargain: The Political Economy Of The Non-Interventionist Challenge To Monopolization Enforcement, Jonathan Baker

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

The antitrust rules governing exclusionary conduct by dominant firms are among the most controversial in U.S. competition policy. During the first decade of the twenty-first century, they were debated in three arenas, involving legal policy, economic policy, and politics. In each arena, the dispute mainly arose as criticism of traditional standards by advocates of less intervention. Viewed through a political economy lens, the controversy can be understood as a potential challenge to an informal political bargain reached during the 1940s by which competition was adopted as national economic policy in preference to regulation or laissez-faire. From this perspective, and applying …

The Law And Economics Of Monopolization Standards, Keith N. Hylton

Faculty Scholarship

Monopolization, the restriction of competition by a dominant firm, is regulated in roughly half of the world’s nations. The two most famous laws regulating monopolization are Section 2 of the Sherman Act, in the United States, and Article 82 of the European Community Treaty. Both laws have been understood as prohibiting ‘abuses’ of monopoly power.

Tracking Berle's Footsteps: The Trail Of The Modern Corporation's Law Chapter, William W. Bratton, Michael L. Wachter

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Designing Antitrust Agencies For More Effective Outcomes: What Antitrust Can Learn From Restaurant Guides, D. Daniel Sokol

UF Law Faculty Publications

Antitrust policy should be concerned with the quality and effectiveness of the antitrust system. Some efforts at agency effectiveness include self-study of antitrust agencies to determine the factors that lead to improving agency quality. Such studies, however, often focus only on enforcement decisions and other agency initiatives such as competition advocacy. They do not reflect at least one other part of the equation: what do non-government users of the antitrust system think about the quality of antitrust agencies? This Symposium Essay advocates the use of a ratings guide by antitrust practitioners for antitrust agencies to add to the tools in …

A Comprehensive Theory Of Deal Structure: Understanding How Transactional Structure Creates Value, Michael S. Knoll, Daniel M. G. Raff

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

International Disparities Panel, Sean Flynn

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Welfare As Happiness, John Bronsteen, Christopher Buccafusco, Jonathan Masur

Articles

Perhaps the most important goal of law and policy is improving people’s lives. But what constitutes improvement? What is quality of life, and how can it be measured? In previous articles, we have used insights from the new field of hedonic psychology to analyze central questions in civil and criminal justice, and we now apply those insights to a broader inquiry: how can the law make life better? The leading accounts of human welfare in law, economics, and philosophy are preference-satisfaction - getting what one wants - and objective list approaches - possessing an enumerated set of capabilities. This Article …