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Series

2007

Articles

University of Chicago Law School

Articles 1 - 30 of 109

Full-Text Articles in Law

Consumption Taxation Is Still Superior To Income Taxation, David A. Weisbach, Joseph Bankman Dec 2007

Consumption Taxation Is Still Superior To Income Taxation, David A. Weisbach, Joseph Bankman

Articles

No abstract provided.


Current Research On Medical Malpractice Liability, Anup Malani Jun 2007

Current Research On Medical Malpractice Liability, Anup Malani

Articles

No abstract provided.


Probability Thresholds, Jonathan Masur May 2007

Probability Thresholds, Jonathan Masur

Articles

Scholars and lower courts have traditionally operated under the belief that cases involving direct tradeoffs between free speech and national security call for the application of straightforward cost-benefit analysis. But the Supreme Court has refused to adhere to this approach, instead deciding difficult liberty-versus-security questions with reference to a "probability threshold"--a doctrinal floor defining how likely a potential threat must be in order to register in the constitutional calculus. This doctrinal innovation has served as a necessary corrective to what would otherwise be the systematic overestimation of speech-based threats driven by the interaction of two factors. First, distinct informational asymmetries …


John Milton: Complete Poems And Major Prose, Richard A. Posner Apr 2007

John Milton: Complete Poems And Major Prose, Richard A. Posner

Articles

No abstract provided.


Classic Revisited: Penal Theory In Paradise Lost, Richard A. Posner, Jillisa Brittan Apr 2007

Classic Revisited: Penal Theory In Paradise Lost, Richard A. Posner, Jillisa Brittan

Articles

No abstract provided.


Essay: On The Divergent American Reactions To Terrorism And Climate Change, Cass R. Sunstein Mar 2007

Essay: On The Divergent American Reactions To Terrorism And Climate Change, Cass R. Sunstein

Articles

Two of the most important sources of catastrophic risk are terrorism and climate change. The United States has responded aggressively to the risk of terrorism while doing very little about the risk of climate change. For the United States alone, the cost of the Iraq War is in excess of the anticipated cost of the Kyoto Protocol. The divergence presents a puzzle; it also raises more general questions about both risk perception and the public demand for legislation. The best explanation for the divergence emphasizes bounded rationality. Americans believe that aggressive steps to reduce the risk of terrorism promise to …


The Law And Economics Of Company Stock In 401(K) Plans, Cass R. Sunstein, Shlomo Benartzi, Richard H. Thaler, Stephen P. Utkus Feb 2007

The Law And Economics Of Company Stock In 401(K) Plans, Cass R. Sunstein, Shlomo Benartzi, Richard H. Thaler, Stephen P. Utkus

Articles

Some 11 million participants in 401(k) plans invest more than 20 percent of their retirement savings in their employer's stock. Yet investing in the stock of one's employer is risky: single securities are riskier than diversified portfolios, and an employee's human capital typically is positively correlated with the company's performance. In the worst-case scenario, workers can lose their jobs and much of their retirement wealth simultaneously. For workers who expect to work for a company for many years, a dollar of company stock can be valued at less than 50 cents after accounting for risk. However, employees still invest voluntarily …


Tribute To Bernard Meltzer, Richard A. Epstein Jan 2007

Tribute To Bernard Meltzer, Richard A. Epstein

Articles

No abstract provided.


Reforming Redistricting: Why Popular Initiatives To Establish Redistricting Commissions Succeed Or Fail, Nicholas Stephanopoulos Jan 2007

Reforming Redistricting: Why Popular Initiatives To Establish Redistricting Commissions Succeed Or Fail, Nicholas Stephanopoulos

Articles

No abstract provided.


The Common Law Genius Of The Warren Court, David A. Strauss Jan 2007

The Common Law Genius Of The Warren Court, David A. Strauss

Articles

The Warren Court's most important decisions-on school segregation, reapportionment, free speech, and criminal procedureare firmly entrenched in the law. But the idea persists, even among those who are sympathetic to the results that the Warren Court reached, that what the Warren Court was doing was somehow not really law: that the Warren Court "made it up," and that the important Warren Court decisions cannot be justified by reference to conventional legal materials. It is true that the Warren Court's most important decisions cannot be easily justified on the basis of the text of the Constitution or the original understandings. But …


''Don't Try This At Home': Posner As Political Economist, Lior Strahilevitz Jan 2007

''Don't Try This At Home': Posner As Political Economist, Lior Strahilevitz

Articles

No abstract provided.


Is Public Reason Counterproductive?, Eduardo Peñalver Jan 2007

Is Public Reason Counterproductive?, Eduardo Peñalver

Articles

No abstract provided.


Fair Use V. Fair Access, Randal C. Picker Jan 2007

Fair Use V. Fair Access, Randal C. Picker

Articles

No abstract provided.


The Credible Executive, Eric A. Posner, Adrian Vermeule Jan 2007

The Credible Executive, Eric A. Posner, Adrian Vermeule

Articles

Legal and constitutional theory has focused chiefly on the risk that voters and legislators will trust an ill-motivated executive. This Article addresses the risk that voters and legislators will fail to trust a well-motivated executive. Absent some credible signal of benign motivations, voters will be unable to distinguish good from bad executives and will thus withhold authority that they would have preferred to grant, making all concerned worse off We suggest several mechanisms with which a well-motivated executive can credibly signal his type, including independent commissions within the executive branch; bipartisanship in appointments to the executive branch, or more broadly …


Origins Of Obscenity, Geoffrey R. Stone Jan 2007

Origins Of Obscenity, Geoffrey R. Stone

Articles

No abstract provided.


Disrupting The Market For Tax Planning, David A. Weisbach Jan 2007

Disrupting The Market For Tax Planning, David A. Weisbach

Articles

No abstract provided.


Gaps In International Legal Literature: Skeptical Reappraisal, Lyonette Louis-Jacques Jan 2007

Gaps In International Legal Literature: Skeptical Reappraisal, Lyonette Louis-Jacques

Articles

No abstract provided.


On Avoiding Foundational Questions - A Reply To Andrew Coan, Cass R. Sunstein Jan 2007

On Avoiding Foundational Questions - A Reply To Andrew Coan, Cass R. Sunstein

Articles

No abstract provided.


Willingness To Pay Vs. Welfare, Cass R. Sunstein Jan 2007

Willingness To Pay Vs. Welfare, Cass R. Sunstein

Articles

No abstract provided.


Judicial Deference And The Credibility Of Agency Commitments, Jonathan Masur Jan 2007

Judicial Deference And The Credibility Of Agency Commitments, Jonathan Masur

Articles

No abstract provided.


The Law Of Nature And The Early History Of Unenumerated Rights In The United States, Richard H. Helmholz Jan 2007

The Law Of Nature And The Early History Of Unenumerated Rights In The United States, Richard H. Helmholz

Articles

This Paper seeks to make a modest contribution to the topic of unenumerated rights in American constitutional law by examining the role that natural law played in our legal system at the time of the founding of the Republic-a period here taken, largely for the sake of convenience, to run from the 1 7 90s through the 1820s. The Paper's focus is on case law, rather than legal theory or constitutional doctrine, although I have tried to say enough about the law of nature as it was understood at the time to put the cases into their intellectual context. Whether …


Technology, Information, And Bankruptcy, Douglas G. Baird Jan 2007

Technology, Information, And Bankruptcy, Douglas G. Baird

Articles

Financial innovations, spurred by the growth of information technology, have transformed the consumer lending industry. Today lenders have unfettered access to a wider spectrum of borrowers and are better able to assess the likelihood that these borrowers will repay the debt they incur. Consequently, the level of consumer household debt has risen dramatically in the past three decades, and will continue to rise, which will lead naturally to an increase in bankruptcy filings. Although our initial intuition tells us that bankruptcies are bad, the author advances the idea that this development is inevitable and that instead of focusing on amending …


All The World's The Men's Room, Mary Anne Case Jan 2007

All The World's The Men's Room, Mary Anne Case

Articles

No abstract provided.


Coniston Corp V. Village Of Hoffman Hills: How To Make Procedural Due Process Disappear, Richard A. Epstein Jan 2007

Coniston Corp V. Village Of Hoffman Hills: How To Make Procedural Due Process Disappear, Richard A. Epstein

Articles

No abstract provided.


How To Solve (Or Avoid) The Exactions Problem, Richard A. Epstein Jan 2007

How To Solve (Or Avoid) The Exactions Problem, Richard A. Epstein

Articles

No abstract provided.


Judge Richard Posner On Civil Liberties: Pragmatic Authoritarian Libertarian, Bernard E. Harcourt Jan 2007

Judge Richard Posner On Civil Liberties: Pragmatic Authoritarian Libertarian, Bernard E. Harcourt

Articles

No abstract provided.


Against Irreparable Benefits, Omri Ben-Shahar Jan 2007

Against Irreparable Benefits, Omri Ben-Shahar

Articles

The conventional approach to preliminary relief focuses on irreparable harm but entirely neglects irreparable benefits. That is hard to understand. Errant irreversible harms are important because they distort incentives and have lasting distributional con


Introduction To The Italian Edition Of Overdose, Richard A. Epstein Jan 2007

Introduction To The Italian Edition Of Overdose, Richard A. Epstein

Articles

No abstract provided.


Deference, Delegation, And Immigration Law, Adam B. Cox Jan 2007

Deference, Delegation, And Immigration Law, Adam B. Cox

Articles

No abstract provided.


If People Would Be Outraged By Their Rulings, Should Judges Care, Cass R. Sunstein Jan 2007

If People Would Be Outraged By Their Rulings, Should Judges Care, Cass R. Sunstein

Articles

At first glance, judicial anticipation of public outrage and its effects seems incompatible with judicial independence. Nonetheless, judges might be affected by the prospect of outrage for both consequentialist and epistemic reasons. If a judicial ruling would undermine the cause that it is meant to promote or impose serious social harms, judges might have reason to hesitate on consequentialist grounds. The prospect ofpublic outrage might also suggest that the court's ruling would be incorrect on the merits; if most people disagree with the court's decision, perhaps the court is wrong. Those who adopt a method of constitutional interpretation on consequentialist …