Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 4 of 4
Full-Text Articles in Law
The Macroeconomic Court: Rhetoric And Implications Of New Deal Decision-Making, Nancy Staudt, Yilei He
The Macroeconomic Court: Rhetoric And Implications Of New Deal Decision-Making, Nancy Staudt, Yilei He
Faculty Working Papers
Supreme Court scholars have long discussed and debated the dramatic shift in constitutional decision-making that took place in the late 1930s—a shift that led the Justices to presume the constitutionality of any and all commercial statutes no matter how "preposterous" they might seem. The conventional wisdom holds that the Supreme Court altered its decision-making calculus to avoid the consequences of President Roosevelt's "court-packing plan," but various other explanations have also emerged in the literature over time. In this Article, Professor Staudt and Ms. He investigate an explanation that scholars and commentators have largely ignored: the role of the economy itself. …
Methodological Advances And Empirical Legal Scholarship: A Note On The Cox And Miles' Voting Rights Act Study, Nancy Staudt, Tyler Vanderweele
Methodological Advances And Empirical Legal Scholarship: A Note On The Cox And Miles' Voting Rights Act Study, Nancy Staudt, Tyler Vanderweele
Faculty Working Papers
In this Response, we use Professors Cox and Miles' recent study of judicial decision-making to explore what is at stake when legal scholars present empirical findings without fully investigating the structural relationships of their data or without explicitly stating the assumptions being made to draw causal inferences. We then introduce a new methodology that is intuitive, easy to use, and, most importantly, allows scholars systematically to assess problems of bias and confounding. This methodology—known as causal directed acyclic graphs—will help empirical researchers to identify true cause and effect relationships when they exist and, at the same time, posit statistical models …
Economic Trends And Judicial Outcomes: A Macrotheory Of The Court, Thomas Brennan, Lee Epstein, Nancy Staudt
Economic Trends And Judicial Outcomes: A Macrotheory Of The Court, Thomas Brennan, Lee Epstein, Nancy Staudt
Faculty Working Papers
In this symposium essay, we investigate the effect of economic conditions on the voting behavior of U.S. Supreme Court Justices. We theorize that Justices are akin to voters in political elections; specifically, we posit that the Justices will view short-term and relatively minor economic downturns—recessions—as attributable to the failures of elected officials, but will consider long-term and extreme economic contractions—depressions—as the result of exogenous shocks largely beyond the control of the government. Accordingly, we predict two patterns of behavior in economic-related cases that come before the Court: (1) in typical times, when the economy cycles through both recessionary and prosperous …
"Controlling" Securities Fraud: Proposed Liability Standards For Controlling Persons Under The 1933 And 1934 Securities Acts, Nancy Staudt
"Controlling" Securities Fraud: Proposed Liability Standards For Controlling Persons Under The 1933 And 1934 Securities Acts, Nancy Staudt
Faculty Working Papers
This Student Note investigates the history and intent underlying the controlling person liability provisions of the 1933 and 1934 Securities Act. It notes that courts have adopted a ranges of standards for holding controlling persons liability, but whichever standard is chosen--that standard is applied to both Acts. This note argues that courts should impose unique liability standards for each statute in order to fully realize Congress' purpose in adopting the laws.