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Full-Text Articles in Law

The Visible Hand: Coordination Functions Of The Regulatory State, Robert B. Ahdieh Dec 2010

The Visible Hand: Coordination Functions Of The Regulatory State, Robert B. Ahdieh

Faculty Scholarship

We live in a coordination economy. As one surveys the myriad challenges of modern social and economic life, an ever increasing proportion is defined not by the need to reconcile competing interests, but by the challenge of getting everyone on the same page. Conflict is not absent in these settings. It is not, however, the determinative factor in shaping our behaviors and resulting interactions. That essential ingredient, instead, is coordination.

Such coordination is commonly understood as the function of the market. As it turns out, however, optimal coordination will not always emerge, as if led “by an invisible hand.” Even …


Foreign Affairs, International Law, And The New Federalism: Lessons From Coordination, Robert B. Ahdieh Oct 2008

Foreign Affairs, International Law, And The New Federalism: Lessons From Coordination, Robert B. Ahdieh

Faculty Scholarship

Even after the departure of two of its most prominent advocates - Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor - the federalism revolution initiated by the Supreme Court almost twenty years ago continues its onward advance. If recent court decisions and congressional legislation are any indication, in fact, it may have reached a new beachhead in the realm of foreign affairs and international law. The emerging federalism in foreign affairs and international law is of a distinct form, however, with distinct implications for the relationship of sub-national, national, and international institutions and interests.

This article - prepared for …


Between Mandate And Market: Contract Transition In The Shadow Of The International Order, Robert B. Ahdieh May 2004

Between Mandate And Market: Contract Transition In The Shadow Of The International Order, Robert B. Ahdieh

Faculty Scholarship

Boilerplate in sovereign debt contracts issued in the United States has long dictated the unanimous consent of bondholders to any debt restructuring. This requirement persisted for decades, notwithstanding wide consensus that such unanimous action provisions increased transaction costs, produced inefficient delays in debt restructuring, enhanced the moral hazards of the sovereign debt market, and otherwise encouraged collective action failures. Yet the sovereign debt markets has recently made an about-face, replacing the unanimity requirement for debt restructuring with a less demanding provision for collective, or majority, action by creditors. Completed over the course of just a few months in 2003, this …


Law's Signal: A Cueing Theory Of Law In Market Transition, Robert B. Ahdieh Jan 2004

Law's Signal: A Cueing Theory Of Law In Market Transition, Robert B. Ahdieh

Faculty Scholarship

Securities markets are commonly assumed to spring forth at the intersection of an adequate supply of, and a healthy demand for, investment capital. In recent years, however, seemingly failed market transitions - the failure of new markets to emerge and of existing markets to evolve - have called this assumption into question. From the developed economies of Germany and Japan to the developing countries of central and eastern Europe, securities markets have exhibited some inability to take root. The failure of U.S. securities markets, and particularly the New York Stock Exchange, to make greater use of computerized trading, communications, and …